The Explicit Body in Performance

by Rebecca Schneider

The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed
* Carolle Schneemann
* Annie Sprinkle
* Karen Finley
* Robbie McCauley
* Ana Mendieta
* Ann Magnuson
* Sandra Bernhard
* Spiderwoman
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 23, 1997

Reviews

[Tia]

Didn’t find this as useful as I had hoped! Fairly dated, perhaps. I think I should have picked up Performing Remains instead.

[Cassie]

Interesting, but performance art annoys me on principle